Tilt is a vehement apologist for the games he loves. Regardless of how many people say something happened or a mechanic is bad he will deny even the possibility and insult the person/people who dare make such 'unfactual' comments.

Pretty much all the feedback by the others sums up my feelings. The stealth is getting tedious, the combat is nothing special, the writing is fine but so far predictable. I don't understand why the industry is always all over Naughtydog's nuts.

The characters are good, this is for sure, but I can tell you without doubt that I felt more emotional connection between Lee and Clementine than I have for anyone else in this story so far. That said I'm only about 4 hours in.

I'm absolutely loving the characters, story, dialogue, setting, scavenging, crafting, and much more. What I'm not enjoying are the insta-death zombie attacks. It's just... NOPE. YOU DIE. LAST CHECKPOINT 5 MINUTES AGO. It feels too much like the dark times of gaming when there were encounters you could only handle if you died horribly on try #1 so you could see how to proceed on try #2.

My other quibble is about the times when it's unclear where you're supposed to go next. I seem to remember also being annoyed with this in the one Uncharted game I played. I'm just in some large building or area and it's not until I happen to stumble across the exit that I see, "oh, I guess I've been trying to get (to the roof / to the basement / to this stairwell) this whole time." I don't need to be on rails or anything, but if the character has some sense of where he is trying to get to, then I as the player should know that as well.

Insult? For fucks sake, who did I insult? The bit I quoted from your post, now that's insulting.

TiLT, it does come off as insulting when you tell people that they just don't understand the game or are playing it wrong.

Now to comment on something else you said, I don't think the Uncharted games have had good combat, either. They are a long way from slick and precise, IMO. So if they're plan was to make it worse here, that was a bad plan.

I get that this isn't meant to be a run and gun shooter. Everyone gets that. I'm not playing it that way at all. However, when forced into a situation where you have to shoot, I am positive that if I were somehow in the same situation in the real world, I would be able to do better than in this game. Of course, I would be dead for other reasons long before getting to this point, but that's irrelevant.

You shouldn't be able to easily get headshots. That's fine. You shouldn't be taking out zombies from afar anyway. But if a zombie is coming at you, and you already have a gun in your hand, pointed in his general direction, you should be able to hit the thing.

You shouldn't be able to easily get headshots. That's fine. You shouldn't be taking out zombies from afar anyway. But if a zombie is coming at you, and you already have a gun in your hand, pointed in his general direction, you should be able to hit the thing.

I thought so as well until I was in the Norwegian Army and suddenly realized I was struggling to hit a human-sized target at 10 meters range with a pistol, while aiming and holding the pistol with both hands. It was quite the eye-opening experience. Generally, shooting any weapon without being able to aim down the sights is incredibly hard and inaccurate under the best of circumstances, and aiming down the sights takes too long when a zombie is running at you.

Anyway, realism isn't necessarily a plus for a game, but believability is. The Last of Us has an approach that works very well for me, and apparently for a near unified review corps.

You shouldn't be able to easily get headshots. That's fine. You shouldn't be taking out zombies from afar anyway. But if a zombie is coming at you, and you already have a gun in your hand, pointed in his general direction, you should be able to hit the thing.

I thought so as well until I was in the Norwegian Army and suddenly realized I was struggling to hit a human-sized target at 10 meters range with a pistol, while aiming and holding the pistol with both hands. It was quite the eye-opening experience. Generally, shooting any weapon without being able to aim down the sights is incredibly hard and inaccurate under the best of circumstances, and aiming down the sights takes too long when a zombie is running at you.

Anyway, realism isn't necessarily a plus for a game, but believability is. The Last of Us has an approach that works very well for me, and apparently for a near unified review corps.

See, it's stuff like that last line there that people take as insulting.

I'm not talking about a human target 10 meters away from you. That's where I'd be getting headshots in other games and wouldn't expect to here. I'm not talking about double tapping in the right zones. I'm talking about having a weapon pointed at something in front of you and hitting meat. I can do that more effectively in real life (well, I haven't hit meat, but you get the point).

Also, saying that you like the combat and all of the reviews are positive does not mean that they also like the combat. The fact is, as is the case with other ND games, the setting, characters and story trump the otherwise sloppy controls (BTW, don't get me started on how many times I've hit run when I meant to be stealthily listening). They are spectacular story tellers, even if they get a little arrogant about it.

See, it's stuff like that last line there that people take as insulting.

???

How on earth could anyone take that as insulting? I said that reviewers seem to agree that the game works for them, and it works for me as well. If you're thinking that what I was saying was some kind of passive-aggressive version of "you don't agree with the reviewers, so you're wrong", you're really stretching it. I was talking about MY experience as compared to the reviewers, not yours.

If I want to insult you I'm going to be obvious about it. I'm not one to shy away from confrontation. If someone annoys me I'll either ignore them or let them know. I won't subtly hint about it. So if I say something that could possibly be read as an insult under the right conditions, assume that I'm not even aware of the possibility that it could be interpreted that way.

I think you bat s*** insane contrarians will find anything you can to rip a game that is getting universal acclaim just so that you can tout your intellectual and gaming superiory the same way dim witted blue collar workers like to swing their genitalia around to display their self delusional sense of dominance.

See, it's stuff like that last line there that people take as insulting.

???

How on earth could anyone take that as insulting? I said that reviewers seem to agree that the game works for them, and it works for me as well. If you're thinking that what I was saying was some kind of passive-aggressive version of "you don't agree with the reviewers, so you're wrong", you're really stretching it. I was talking about MY experience as compared to the reviewers, not yours.

If I want to insult you I'm going to be obvious about it. I'm not one to shy away from confrontation. If someone annoys me I'll either ignore them or let them know. I won't subtly hint about it. So if I say something that could possibly be read as an insult under the right conditions, assume that I'm not even aware of the possibility that it could be interpreted that way.

I guess the point is, TiLT, that people frequently find you to be insulting, and you either don't care or aren't aware of it. So maybe you should take a look at how you phrase things, instead of putting the blame on everyone else.

Quote from: msduncan on June 17, 2013, 03:39:28 PM

He's not doing a good enough job at being insulting.

I think you bat s*** insane contrarians will find anything you can to rip a game that is getting universal acclaim just so that you can tout your intellectual and gaming superiory the same way dim witted blue collar workers like to swing their genitalia around to display their self delusional sense of dominance.

And Sony rulez Microsoft drools.

I think you're trying to be funny? But I certainly am not trying to insult a popular game just to do it. In fact, I find it frustrating that a game I am otherwise really loving hits these speed bumps where I am forced into combat and dread it. Not dread it in the sense of, ooh, zombies, how immersive, but dread in the sense of, ugh, this is another frustrating game moment. It's the opposite of immersive at that point.

And the game is so good at being immersive at all other times, that it just drives the frustration home all the more.

I think you bat s*** insane contrarians will find anything you can to rip a game that is getting universal acclaim just so that you can tout your intellectual and gaming superiory the same way dim witted blue collar workers like to swing their genitalia around to display their self delusional sense of dominance.

See, it's stuff like that last line there that people take as insulting.

???

How on earth could anyone take that as insulting? I said that reviewers seem to agree that the game works for them, and it works for me as well. If you're thinking that what I was saying was some kind of passive-aggressive version of "you don't agree with the reviewers, so you're wrong", you're really stretching it. I was talking about MY experience as compared to the reviewers, not yours.

If I want to insult you I'm going to be obvious about it. I'm not one to shy away from confrontation. If someone annoys me I'll either ignore them or let them know. I won't subtly hint about it. So if I say something that could possibly be read as an insult under the right conditions, assume that I'm not even aware of the possibility that it could be interpreted that way.

Are you playing on Normal or Hard? I'm not great at games and am playing on easy level specifically to avoid these issues

I guess the point is, TiLT, that people frequently find you to be insulting, and you either don't care or aren't aware of it. So maybe you should take a look at how you phrase things, instead of putting the blame on everyone else.

Quote from: msduncan on June 17, 2013, 03:39:28 PM

He's not doing a good enough job at being insulting.

I think you bat s*** insane contrarians will find anything you can to rip a game that is getting universal acclaim just so that you can tout your intellectual and gaming superiory the same way dim witted blue collar workers like to swing their genitalia around to display their self delusional sense of dominance.

And Sony rulez Microsoft drools.

I think you're trying to be funny? But I certainly am not trying to insult a popular game just to do it. In fact, I find it frustrating that a game I am otherwise really loving hits these speed bumps where I am forced into combat and dread it. Not dread it in the sense of, ooh, zombies, how immersive, but dread in the sense of, ugh, this is another frustrating game moment. It's the opposite of immersive at that point.

And the game is so good at being immersive at all other times, that it just drives the frustration home all the more.

What level are you playing on, I am playing on easy specifically to avoid these issues including aim help as well, im just crap with a joypad unless its car games

Some really cool stuff happened around the 70% mark some of which changes gameplay quiet a bit for a while at least. My opinion on combat hasn't changed. I'm just wanting more character interactions and more time exploring the atmospheric environments. I've gotten quiet good at the combat encounters so luckily I can get them over with quickly without too many reloads. Everyone was talking about Elizabeth when Infinite came out but I think the relationship between Ellie (similar name, another coincidence!) and Joel has so much more impact than Booker/Elizabeth. Bioshock Infinite is my GOTY so far so that's saying a lot. I think I should be nearing the end, might be able to finish it tonight.

All in all, I don't have much fun with the game but thats probably more me than the game. I don't understand all the 100's and 95's though - The game has a lot of issues, but the more I think about it, the more its probably because how good it looks, meaning errors are looking more out of place.

It's funny because I don't think the game looks all that great as a whole. There are some scenes that looks awesome, but there's a lot of bad blurry textures and overall just not good graphically. With that said I think the story is interesting and have no real issues with the gun play. I also thought the gun play was fine in the Uncharted Series.

Eh, there is no avoiding blurry textures, period. Unless you're a completely linear corridor shooter that has a tiny narrow path through the game planned and can thus stream in every single exact high res texture.

For games like this, and say Bioshock Infinite, and others. If you fixate on a few, or a bunch of blurry textures, you lose sight of the whole art design.

I'm willing to deal with some blurry textures, for a whole lot more unique textures and environments, than the same damn high res texture over and over.

It's like a movie set, even the greatest movies have issues with their sets, but the reason why they're rated in the 90+s is that the movie as a whole easily transcends that.

I have to agree with Tilt's assessment on the game. Especially regarding the gun play. It's a designed implementation on making it difficult to shoot at zombies. It can be done, but they are going for the effect that not just some normal citizen can just go out and lay waste on zombies. It takes years of training/practicing to be an accurate shooter. Yes the game takes place 20 years after the event (hope that's not a spoiler if it's is, it's very minor... ) so ya you could argue that he had 20 years to practice, but from I"ve played so far, Joel does stuff just to survive, he's not out and about every day getting rid of zombies.

Anyways, this game is more about character driven content than run and gun. I'm in it for the story, and that's what I think Naughty Dog wanted this to be.

Eh, there is no avoiding blurry textures, period. Unless you're a completely linear corridor shooter that has a tiny narrow path through the game planned and can thus stream in every single exact high res texture.

For games like this, and say Bioshock Infinite, and others. If you fixate on a few, or a bunch of blurry textures, you like sight of the whole art design.

I'm willing to deal with some blurry textures, for a whole lot more unique textures and environments, than the same damn high res texture over and over.

It's like a movie set, even the greatest movies have issues with their sets, but the reason why they're rated in the 90+s is that the movie as a whole easily transcends that.

Oh I agree, I had the same thought about bioshock. I thought bioshock infinite looked a lot better than last of us. I'm just countering Razgon's claim about the graphics. I don't think it's as good as their past games (Uncharted)

I think it may be that because TLoU is set in a painterly modern aesthetic, you don't get those amazing fantastical locations that really force you take in the environment as a whole. Stuff like the giant temple in Uncharted 2. Plenty of blurry textures there, but your eyes didn't notice, you were too busy taking in this giant freaking environment. All of Columbia was that grand scale environment that made you forget that the rose bush textures were horrible low res.

With TLoU, it's small towns in the South and decrepit versions of things anyone from the US has seen before. But, if you step back and look at everything, it all paints a bleak, yet interesting picture. Things like going through people's houses that are probably all now dead.

The texture issue is the most immediate benefit we'll see from the new generation of consoles, as it's the RAM in the machines holding textures back. Take a look at everything that's rendered on the screen, as well as the music, the sound effects, the dialogue, the AI, the code... Then imagine the stuff right around the corner. All of that is supposed to fit into way less than 512 MB of RAM. That takes very, very skillful juggling of resources, and it's something that developers won't have to obsess so much about for some time after the new generation hits.

I have to agree with Tilt's assessment on the game. Especially regarding the gun play. It's a designed implementation on making it difficult to shoot at zombies. It can be done, but they are going for the effect that not just some normal citizen can just go out and lay waste on zombies. It takes years of training/practicing to be an accurate shooter. Yes the game takes place 20 years after the event (hope that's not a spoiler if it's is, it's very minor... ) so ya you could argue that he had 20 years to practice, but from I"ve played so far, Joel does stuff just to survive, he's not out and about every day getting rid of zombies.

Anyways, this game is more about character driven content than run and gun. I'm in it for the story, and that's what I think Naughty Dog wanted this to be.

I was going to make the point that he survived 20 years and in the profession he is in now,

Spoiler for Hiden:

a smuggler

he would have to have some gun experience to survive. If the game was pure stealth and it didn't force you into shooting situations then I would be fine with it. After I upgraded a gun stat that did fix some of the issues I had with shooting. The human enemies are really fun to engage and I've had some cool battles, one took about 20 minutes and had me taking out people then running around the searchers to flank them. I haven't had the same experience with the zombies, those sections feel tedious because of the one hit kills and the AI running crazily around me. There sure are a lot of ladders in the game.

I still like the game and having a great time with it, but I do have some issues with it. The 7.1 surround sound is amazing and it feels like you are there and sometimes/ it can scare you

Spoiler for Hiden:

mainly Bills footsteps, they were so loud, no way could he move around in stealth

Some collectibles just have bits of dialog when you collect, or look at them.

I'm finished with the game.

I have to say, late in the game, some encounters get a bit ridiculous, definitely drop down the difficulty if you have issues with it to preserve the flow of the story. Much harder to sneak through as well.

As for the ending:

Spoiler for Hiden:

Apparently, there's different ways to handle the surgeons. I need to test it, but you can shoot near the surgeon, to make him drop the scalpel. But that's just a rumor I'll have to test.

Sad thing is, medically, there was no reason to require Ellie's death. In fact, the best scientists, even ones that are psychpathic mad scientists, would recognize that Ellie being alive in the hospital for a long stay with lots of tests over the years is worth more than a hack job of a surgery to cut out infected parts of her brain.

You literally do not need to get an entire sample of the cordyceps parasite directly from the brain. You just get a sample from her blood or other bodily fluid, it's the exact same thing. Then there's this thing called "culturing" where you take a basic strain of something and just grow more for lab use, not a big deal.

Also, the immunity is within Ellie, or likely the interactions. Killing her removes that living interaction. All in all this kind of, "Oh no, getting the cure will kill you! Will you die to save us all?" has become a trope as much as letting the main character survive.

I would have loved to see it end instead on a note where you have a crazy scientist who wants all the credit for saving humanity there and then, trying to grab as much samples directly to speed up the process. Then, a more reasonable scientist trying to get Joel to help convince Marlene to put a stop to it. Marlene instead is just so tired and out her mind she authorizes the fast method so that she can see the world without the infected sooner than later.

In the end, they could still need to have a risky surgery. One where they don't know if it will be successful, and Ellie makes the choice to go through with it. Ellie and Joel have a really heartbreaking talk before the surgery. Then as she's being prepped and laid down on the table, you flash back to Joel laying the dying Sara down, coming to grips with his loss, and now potential loss of Ellie.

I cringed the moment I heard Marlene say some BS about needing to kill Ellie. If they'd gone with my route, we could also have skipped that terrible section where you're dodging soldiers in segments that were almost impossible to sneak through, or at least make me hate the soldiers even more.

In the end, knowing the science and medicine behind it could have led to a more interesting writing of the outcome. Not only that, if they wanted to leave more room for a sequel, it's easy enough to say, as others have pointed out, that a vaccine would take a long time to develop, and even if there was one it would take a long time to distribute.

With the current ending, there's the issue with Ellie still being infected, so have fun getting people sick by spitting on them Ellie. I feel sorry for when she ever gets a boyfriend and kisses him. Honestly, if they do a Last of Us 2, I suspect it will pickup right off from Ellie, now 19 or a 20 something, having been banished or runs away from the community after accidentally killing her boyfriend.

Replaying this after finishing it, I think people's valid complaints about its shooting, and a lot of Naughty Dog's shooting being off or poor is valid.

However, I don't think the basic mechanics as planned and designed are poor, but as I've said before, it's the system that's the problem. They've hit the limit, and no amount of tricks can replicate things like solidly high FPS and control responsiveness. That's the biggest problem for people, and rightly so. Naughty Dog seems to always sacrifice those aspects for more fidelity in graphics and animation.

Give me next gen. Heck, budget to let Naughty Dog do the long porting process to being TLoU to PS4, or see any of these games on PC, and I think the problems people had with shooting would go away once they can simply push the stick in the direction they want to aim and see a reaction that doesn't take an unbearable half second to respond.

Replaying this after finishing it, I think people's valid complaints about its shooting, and a lot of Naughty Dog's shooting being off or poor is valid.

However, I don't think the basic mechanics as planned and designed are poor, but as I've said before, it's the system that's the problem. They've hit the limit, and no amount of tricks can replicate things like solidly high FPS and control responsiveness. That's the biggest problem for people, and rightly so. Naughty Dog seems to always sacrifice those aspects for more fidelity in graphics and animation.

Give me next gen. Heck, budget to let Naughty Dog do the long porting process to being TLoU to PS4, or see any of these games on PC, and I think the problems people had with shooting would go away once they can simply push the stick in the direction they want to aim and see a reaction that doesn't take an unbearable half second to respond.

Of course, the odd sensitivity on the PS3's thumb sticks don't help.

Supposedly the PS4's thumbsticks are tighter.

You said it nicely at the top, Turtle. There is an element of hampered ability that's part of the game, and that's fine, but even at its best in this and other ND games, the shooting isn't great. Not a problem when character and setting and story are the focus of the game (and that's mostly what ND games are about), but those moments where you're forced to shoot are basically just things you have to get through to get to the good stuff.

I'm not convinced that moving to the PS4 is going to fix that, though. The system is still in place. I don't know that having more power to play with will suddenly change the system. Even if that's possible, I imagine ND will just use that extra power to ramp up the stuff they're good at doing to even higher levels and the combat will suffer again.

Frankly, I'd love to see one of their games that avoids combat all together.

Going to a more powerful system would make their complex engine run faster, that means the input lag and such would be greatly reduced, as well as a higher stable framerate to allow the player's mind to more accurately track targets.

That would be he main benefit of Naughty Dog working on PS4 hardware. They already have a really nice painterly style that they could use on the PS4, which means that even after they make everything look pretty, and the characters animate interestingly, they have more left over to put towards quickly processing input and frames.

At this point, for this game, I'm fine with the trade off. However, their games could definitely get better with a silky smooth framerate and no input lag. I also think players will put up with it less as the new generation of games comes to light.

Going to a more powerful system would make their complex engine run faster, that means the input lag and such would be greatly reduced, as well as a higher stable framerate to allow the player's mind to more accurately track targets.

That would be he main benefit of Naughty Dog working on PS4 hardware. They already have a really nice painterly style that they could use on the PS4, which means that even after they make everything look pretty, and the characters animate interestingly, they have more left over to put towards quickly processing input and frames.

At this point, for this game, I'm fine with the trade off. However, their games could definitely get better with a silky smooth framerate and no input lag. I also think players will put up with it less as the new generation of games comes to light.

But they won't just make the same level of game with more powerful hardware. They're going to push that hardware to its limits, too, I'm guessing. Which would probably create the same issue.

Man this game is suspenseful. The relationship between Joel and Ellie is just so real. And I loved the levels with Bill. That added another dimension.

I also like the way implemented the shooting aspect. It's a well thought out design decision that adds extra tension to the game. I never once thought there was anything wrong in the uncharted series in terms of gunplay, and in Last of Us it does feel harder, but it's done by design. Hence the upgrade system regarding gun sway, and gun upgrades.

The "action" takes a backseat, and it's the story/character development that takes front stage. The sooner we accept that the better you will enjoy the game.

Graphically, I think the beginning was bland, but once they left the quarantine area things started looking alot better

Man this game is suspenseful. The relationship between Joel and Ellie is just so real. And I loved the levels with Bill. That added another dimension.

I also like the way implemented the shooting aspect. It's a well thought out design decision that adds extra tension to the game. I never once thought there was anything wrong in the uncharted series in terms of gunplay, and in Last of Us it does feel harder, but it's done by design. Hence the upgrade system regarding gun sway, and gun upgrades.

The "action" takes a backseat, and it's the story/character development that takes front stage. The sooner we accept that the better you will enjoy the game.

Graphically, I think the beginning was bland, but once they left the quarantine area things started looking alot better

Again a design decision I think. The quarantine area is supposed to be drab, oppressive, constricting, and devoid of any kind of hope. The outside world is a reminder of how the world used to be, and that mankind is still ultimately at the mercy of nature and can easily surrender back to it. There is a scene towards the end of the game (without spoiling it) that I think it suddenly dawns on Joel that maybe letting nature take over again might not be a bad thing, and that there is hope to be found in what seemed to be a world without hope.

I tried a game of multiplayer and strangely enough, I have no issues with the controls there. It was actually quiet fun. It's slower paced lethal combat sort of like hardcore mode in COD. You still have very little ammo just like SP. Everyone has the hear skill so if you are running around, you will be quickly located. There are 4 classes: Assault, Sniper, Support and something else (Medic?). Seemed like the Support class can build stuff but not sure how that works. I will have to try it some more.

Now that the ending has sunk in, I think it's just about perfect. Kudos to ND for not going for the Hollywood ending.

Spoiler for Hiden:

It's not a clean ending sure, but the theme throughout the game was about the relationship between father and child. It wasn't about saving the world. So while it is morally dubious and Joel has to lie to Ellie, I still think it's an appropriate ending. Also I think it's a little silly to apply scientific logic in a game with fungus zombies. I actually don't know why they went for zombie theme here, it was totally unnecessary. Instead they could have done it in a totally realistic scenario. i.e. a realistic virus wipes out most of humanity.

Are there encounters where if you hide long enough human troops will pull out? Or do I just have to constantly stealth kill my way through them?

Do you specifically mean troops, or any human enemy? I recall two specific encounters where roving bandits left the area while I remained hidden. I'm at 38% complete.

I"m not far in but there's an encounter in the museum where you get to the bottom and there are like 8 cops and they cover pretty much every avenue. I've run in circles around a desk as a guy searches the room and they're all like 'SEE ANYTHING?' and then i continue to do it for a while and they just continue to patrol.